Derivation of Offensive Selection From Natural Selection as It Relates to Sexual Strategies

This analysis presents an alternative idea to that of sexual selection which is called offensive selection, coupled with defensive selection. These categories of natural selection, predominately offensive selection, pave the way for an evaluation of the sexual strategies that have evolved among human males and females in selecting a mating partner. Some of these discussed characteristics are physical attractiveness, commitment, financial status, and health. Preferences for these characteristics vary among males and females and also among short-term versus long-term relationships. They have become an evolved predictor for fertility and survivability of offspring. These predictors are a product of offensive selection in evolutionary history of the human species.

Charles Darwin proposed natural selection as the process by which adaptations are created and change in a species takes place over time. This results in gradual changes caused by successful variants (changes) increasing in frequency due to their contribution to survivability of the species. Darwin was perplexed by the fact that some species displayed characteristics that would seem to cause more predation instead of less. He realized that these characteristics were beneficial to mating instead of warding off predators. These attributes are ones, which could harm the organism's chance of survival but increase their chance of reproduction. He called this process sexual selection (Buss, 2002). Sexual selection is similar to natural selection in that it also aids in the increased survivability of a species. Natural selection refers to the selection that aids in the survivability of a species in general, while sexual selection is more specific and merely relates to a particular way in which selection aids in the survivability of a species. Sexual selection is therefore not a separate entity from natural selection because natural selection encompasses sexual selection, making it a sub-category of natural selection.

It would be more appropriate to break natural selection down into two categories, one which sexual selection would fall under. These two categories will be called defensive selection and offensive selection.

Defensive and Offensive Selection

Defensive selection refers to the survival of traits that prevent competition or predation within a species. It is primarily responsible for the survival of the individual and secondly responsible for the survival of the species through the survival of each individual member. Defensive selection deals with traits, which survive the test of time
due to their ability to help an individual organism survive long enough to reproduce. Offensive selection is unconcerned with the survival of the individual and the prevention of predation. Offensive selection may in fact cause predation to be worse. The primary goal is to ensure survival of offspring and secondly to ensure survival of the species through survival of each offspring. Offensive selection deals with traits, which help an organism find a suitable and healthy mate to reproduce with. It is responsible for traits that display fertility and attractiveness to the opposite sex.

Both selection mechanisms work to ensure that the species survives and flourishes but defensive selection does it thorough ensuring survival of the individual already present while offensive selection does it through the survival of the offspring based on fertility and health of the individual. Defensive selection serves to prevent death of existing organisms, while offensive selection serves to enable new life for future organisms. Defensive selection is necessary for offensive selection to occur, but offensive selection will always prevail in expressing the trait. If the expression of a certain trait simultaneously aids in the acquisition of a mate and the production of offspring as well as susceptibility to predators, the trait will be expressed despite the detrimental affects it could potentially fabricate.

These terms are designated as such because defensive selection defends the species through individual defense mechanisms against predators and offensive selection actively and offensively aids in producing new offspring to benefit the species. Let us take for example, a soccer game. This soccer game will be called Natural Selection. The two competing teams will represent two species interacting in the same environment. The defensive players stay back closer to the goal that belongs to their team. They are defending the goal from having points scored against them, which could cause them to lose. The act of a team (or species) scoring a point is analogous with the death of an individual organism of the opposing team and if that team loses the game then it represents the death of that species. The offensive players of one team actively move forward through the players of the other team in order to score points. The act of a team (or species) scoring a point is analogous with the birth of a new organism in that species. The offensive players are actively trying to gain more points, or more organisms, while the defensive players are trying to protect the team against losing points to the other team, or in this scenario, losing organisms to death. Both types of players are necessary for the game, just as both types of selection are necessary for the survival of a species in the game of life, otherwise known as natural selection.

Intrasexual Competition and Intersexual Selection

Offensive selection is the basis for evolution of sexual strategies through intrasexual competition and intersexual selection, which are both specific ways to express sexual cues toward the opposite sex. Intrasexual competition is competition between members of the same sex for mating access to members of the opposite sex. Intersexual selection is preferential choice exerted by members of one sex for members of the opposite sex (Buss, 1988). Both of these strategies encompass different features such as health, attractiveness and behavior. The difference lies in whether the organism is dealing with its own sex or the opposite sex. Intrasexual competition and intersexual selection are both an integral part of offensive selection. They both ensure fertility of mates and survivability of offspring, but do not aid in the immediate survival of the individual. Among humans, males and females both display characteristics of intrasexual competition and intersexual selection. The devices that are used for each type of selection vary among men and women and among different types of situations. In our evolutionary history, both men and women have pursued short-term and long-term mating and mating strategies under conditions where the reproductive benefits have outweighed any costs (Schmitt & Buss, 1993).

Long-Term Versus Short-Term Mating Strategies

The effectiveness of an act of attraction depends on three variables: the mate preference of the desired partner, whether there are rivals trying to attract the potential partner, and the type of relationship sought with the partner. Men and Women both seek long-term and short-term relationships, but preferences for both men and women shift methodically depending on whether a short-term or long-term relationship is desired (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). Tactics used for finding a potential mate differ based on the type of relationship being pursued and the gender involved. It has been shown that tactics relating to physical attractiveness will be more effective in the context of short-term than in the context of long-term relationships (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). Physical attractiveness is an attribute that is less important in long-term relationships.

Women who tend to seek short-term relationships seem to prefer men higher in status and dominance (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). Women are more interested in social status and position than emotional aspects of men for a short-term relationship. This can be credited to the fact that a socially attractive guy is ideal to the female seeking him out because he is directly beneficial to her, increasing her status and appearance to others, whereas an emotionally attractive male is ideal for a long-term relationship and the care provided to her and her children. As a whole, men devote a larger portion of their total mating effort to short-term mating than do women (Schmitt & Buss, 1993). The innate goal of a man is to increase his chances at having healthy offspring. He accomplishes this by having sex with numerous women. The more women he has sex with, the greater the chance he will produce healthy offspring. Feminist Theory suggests that women would be likely to report, and probably experience, a desire for fewer sexual partners (Silverstein, 1996). This supports the idea that, in nature, females are expected to evolve traits that maximize offspring quality rather than quantity (Bailey, Gaulin, Agyei & Gladue, 1994). From an evolutionary perspective, seeking and acquiring one committed male is more beneficial to the success of our species than seeking and acquiring many non-committed males. Women participate in short-term relationships to increase their status, attractiveness and desire as seen by other men. This enables them to display characteristics and roles necessary to reel in males for a long-term relationship. Men can also utilize short-term relationships as a means for making themselves appear to be more desirable and relationship worthy. Both men and women always seem to be more desirable when someone of the opposite sex is already pursuing them. Engaging in short-term relationships allows people from both gender categories to display and search for qualities they want in a potential long-term mating partner. Women, especially, use short-term mating for self-promotion and competitor derogation, which increases men's perceptions of their sexual availability (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). This mating strategy is a type of intrasexual competition and is practiced by both men and women. This competition is most widely used for engaging in short-term relationships.

When pursuing a long-term relationship and sexual strategy, both sexes cope with the difficulties of finding a partner who will commit to the relationship for a sustained period of time (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). The top ranked qualities men and women look for in each other are identical and consist of kindness, understanding, and intelligence (Hazan & Diamond, 2000). Men and women both prefer understanding and kindness more in potential long-term mating partners than in potential short-term mating partners (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). These personality characteristics, along with displaying signs of commitment and expressed expectation of a long relationship are more effective at attracting long-term mates than short-term mates (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). Long-term relationships are most ideal for raising offspring and these aforementioned personality characteristics create an ideal environment for ensuring the health, safety and well being of the offspring.

The characteristics of love, affection, kindness, commitment, understanding and so forth are all in existence because as a species we thrive in groups, working together (Ruse, 1993). The human species would not have the success and superiority that it does today if not for the evolution of the need to belong. It is possible that nature masks the underlying and fundamental reasons for mating in the characteristics that people look for in a possible mate (Ruse, 1993). People say they enter a relationship because they love each other when in fact having that relationship which combines desirable and successful genes is what is most beneficial for the survival of our species. These traits, along with the following ones discussed are all products of offensive selection and aid in the survival of offspring through sexual strategies and reproductive cues.

Physical Characteristics

Female reproductive capacity is closely linked to bodily features, such as facial characteristics and waist-to-hip ratio that denote youth, health and fertility. A woman's reproductive age is limited; therefore, youth is highly valued in females for mate preferences (Archer & Mehdikhani, 2003). Contrary to females, males can reproduce throughout life, which has caused the evolution of youth to be of less importance when compared to its value in females. Women show greater intrasexual competition for displaying cues that correlate with reproductive value and fertility through enhancing physical attractiveness, appearing healthy, youthful and hard-to-get (Buss, 1988). Females tend to be more selective than males when choosing a mate, which causes males to participate in intrasexual competition by competing for females (Schmitt & Buss, 1993). They do this through enhancing their size, stature and dominance in society. Males and females both engage in intrasexual competition through enhancing their physical attributes. Females enhance attributes that show higher fertility while males enhance attributes that show higher status and dominance.

Beauty and bodily form have evolved in animals to be perceived as cues to high parasite resistance in choosing mates. Similarly, humans are affected by beauty and form in the opposite sex. One of the ways in which beauty and form is looked at is through bodily symmetry and in particular, facial symmetry (Grammer & Thornhill, 1994). Offensive selection favors those traits that advertise resistance to parasites and general weakness in organisms. In humans, symmetry is linked to fitness and sexual attractiveness. Symmetry appears to be more important in short-term strategies than in long-term strategies (Archer & Mehdikhani, 2003). Females tend to prefer averageness and symmetry for short-term relationships (Grammer & Thornhill, 1994), but tend to prefer less attractive and less symmetrical men for long-term relationships (Archer & Mehdikhani, 2003). This may be attributed to the fact that more attractive and symmetrical men tend to pursue attractive and symmetrical women for short-term relationships and subsequently make themselves unavailable for long-term relationships.

Parental Investment and Paternal Uncertainty

One of the central driving forces behind offensive selection is the degree of parental investment each sex devotes to their offspring. Parental investment is defined as any investment by the parent in an individual offspring that increases the offspring's chances of surviving at the cost of the parent's ability to invest in other offspring (Schmitt & Buss, 1993). Parents have a limited amount of resources, including time and money, which can be allocated towards there offspring. This limitation puts restrictions on the number of offspring a parent can have and still adequately provide for them. It is also not a necessity that the offspring in question are the parent's own offspring. Theoretically, the sex that invests more in the offspring should be more choosy or discriminating about who they mate with, or intersexual attraction. Adversely, the sex that invests less should be more competitive for access to the valuable, but limited, high-investing members of the opposite sex (Schmitt & Buss, 1993).

In nature, the ratio of men to women is 1:1, one man for every woman. It would seem like neither sex would be challenged for mates, but this is not the case. The immediate reproductive benefits of acquiring sexual access to a variety of mates would have been much higher for men than for women throughout evolutionary history (Buss, 1995). Males reproduce more rapidly than females and females tend to invest more time into offspring; therefore, they are less available and in short supply (Bailey et al., 1994). This difference in reproductive rate hinders the availability of females to males, which causes females to be more selective, choosing from a large number of males, and males to be more competitive, competing for a short supply of females (Schmitt & Buss, 1993). Females are better at maximizing fitness by being more discriminating in order to obtain a male with good genes, resources, and parenting skills, but males are better at maximizing fitness by seeking to mate with many females (Archer, 1996). There is also an imbalance in the time of investment that is absolutely necessary for each parent to contribute. Females must at least contribute nine months of their time while males are only required to contribute a few minutes. This imbalance early on causes a general imbalance between the sexes in parental investment for the development of the offspring (Archer & Mehdikhani, 2003). Some men are better suited to the parental strategy rather than sexual strategy and this difference causes men to either be committed to a single partner with parenting skills or seek to fertilize many women with no parenting skills (Archer & Mehdikhani, 2003). Men better suited for the parental strategy are likely to be involved in long-term relationships, while men better suited for the sexual strategy are likely to be involved in short-term relationships. Men can be either low parental investors or high parental investors, but in general, women are always high parental investors. The mammalian method of reproduction and length of gestation are the major reason for their high investment in offspring (Archer & Mehdikhani, 2003).

Parental uncertainty is an innate psychological issue that men mainly have to deal with. A man can never be sure that the child he is providing for is really his, but he does not consciously realize this. Subconsciously, he can never be 100% certain. Women, on the other hand, can be 100% certain that their children are really theirs because they give birth to them. If a man is willing to contribute high parental investment than they are more likely to invest in offspring that are not biologically related to them if necessary (Wood & Eagly, 2002). Women tend to seek males that have the resources to support them and their offspring but males can be hesitant of such commitment because of this paternal uncertainty. The high parental investment women must invest in their offspring and the little minimum investment of men causes women to be particularly susceptible to being abandoned and left to raise children alone (Schmitt & Buss, 1996).

Offensive Selection of Emotional and Physical Characteristics

If there were no emotional attachment to mating, then men would have no incentive not to abandon their mate and offspring. The emotional relationship two people establish serves to create a need and dependence, which causes them to stay together for long periods of time and give maximum investment to their offspring. The attachment aspect of mating actually has the function of keeping people together because humans, as a species, thrive through commitment and community. People need each other in order to gain maximum benefit for themselves and for the species as a whole.

Every physical and emotional characteristic that aids in finding a favorable mate that will ensure offspring survival is a product of offensive selection. Every characteristic is one that brings people together, whether it is based on physical attractiveness or personality. This need for attachment and need to belong are basic needs, which not only ensure the survival of individual offspring, but also ensure the survival of our species. Humans need each other in order to survive and thrive as a species.

Competition, duration of mating, and physical characteristics, including facial symmetry, are all important aspects of human mating. These attributes aid in the production and survival of offspring, but do not increase survival of the parents. These sexual strategies are all an integral part of offensive selection, which have evolved to ensure success and survival of human beings.